Scambling Days
The days so called were Mondays and Saturdays in Lent, when no regular meals were provided, and the members of our great families scambled. In the old household-book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland there is a particular section appointing the order of service for these days, and so regulating the licentious contentions of them. Shakespeare, in his play of Henry V. (act v. scene 2), makes King Henry say: “If ever thou be’st mine, Kate, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder.”
The word scambling is conjectured to be derived from the Greek σκαμβος, oblique, indirect, &c.
“The scambling and unquiet time.”
Shak. Henry V. act i. sc. 1.
—Med. Ævi Kalend. vol. ii. p. 350. Antiq. Repert. 1809, vol. iv. pp. 87, 91, 305.